It is well-known that a telephone answering machine allows for recording of messages from callers in response to an announcement previously recorded by the called party. The called party may retrieve the messages from the machine in the order of receipt.
Analog answering machines are common which incorporate cassette tape recording equipment for recording the announcement and messages. With the advent of technology, digital answering machines have emerged. A digital answering machine includes a coder for converting an analog speech to digital data representative thereof, and a voice synthesizer for synthesizing the analog speech based on the digital data. Using the coder, the machine can digitize the announcement and messages, and store the corresponding digital data in a memory. By retrieving the stored data and using the voice synthesizer, the machine can play back the corresponding announcement to callers and messages to the called party. Unlike an analog answering machine, a digital answering machine has no moving tape recording part, thereby affording a quieter operation and faster access to the announcement and messages.
Systems using information in voice messages to help process transactions such as taking customers' orders are known. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,574 issued Mar. 26, 1991 to Denq et al. The Denq system records and digitizes voice messages by customer-callers containing order information. Certain recognized terminology in the digitized messages is stored in file records corresponding thereto. In processing the customers' orders, as each digitized message is retrieved in the order of receipt, the corresponding file record terminology is displayed on a transcribing terminal in the system, filling part of a predefined order template. The digitized message is received by an operator at the transcribing terminal as an audio message, and the operator completes the rest of the template using information contained in the audio message.